Florida Legislative Foundation: Ethics Reform First

Friday

Mar 8, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Florida's Legislature opened its annual session Tuesday, with hard work already been done to advance ethics reform — a priority identified by Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford.

Florida's Legislature opened its annual session Tuesday, with hard work already been done to advance ethics reform — a priority identified by Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford. The state Senate did not waste time, passing the ethics bill unanimously Tuesday, right after the 60-day legislative session opened. The House is next.This action is a tribute to former Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, who reached her term limit in 2012, but not before pressing her ethics bill again, as she had year after year.During a visit to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune Feb. 27, Gaetz, R-Niceville described the work as "the most sweeping ethics reform in 38 years."The legislation would:● Prohibit legislators from voting on bills on which they declare a conflict of interest. Currently, they can vote on such issues, then declare their conflict within 15 days. The status quo provides little deterrence and fails to place the public and other legislators on notice about conflicts.● Require public officials to post financial-disclosure statements online using a searchable database. (Currently, the statements are filed on paper and cannot be searched by the public; state staffers require members of the public to request specific documents, which are then copied and delivered by postal mail if required. This process is antiquated and slow and it limits access.)● Restrict legislators, state and local officials from taking jobs with state colleges and public agencies while they are in office.● Increase the investigative and enforcement powers of the Commission on Ethics.● Extend the statute of limitations — the length of time charges can be brought — on ethics violations to 20 years from four years.● Make legislators and other public officials subject to private-property liens and salary garnishment if they fail to pay fines levied for ethics violations. Gaetz said the state recently wrote off $800,000 in uncollected fines for ethics offenses.● Strictly limit how legislative leaders can use political funding groups called Committees of Continuous Existence to pay for personal expenses. Public officials would be barred from accepting gifts from CCEs.Restrictions on CCEs, which some legislators have used as personal slush funds and others have tapped to fund campaigns against political adversaries, are overdue and welcome. But the House should go further than the Senate and prohibit legislators from having CCEs, a move that Gaetz said he would not oppose.This year, it's time — as Gaetz and Weatherford have recognized — for the Legislature to pass legislation that governs the behavior and practices of lawmakers.